Investing in the stock market can build lifelong wealth, and the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is a powerhouse index with decades of history generating positive long-term returns.
To be clear, past performance doesn’t predict future returns, so there’s no way to know for certain how any investment will perform over time
That said, the longer your timeline, the more likely you are to experience consistent growth. Here’s how far $200 per month in the S&P 500 could go over 30 years. Building wealth with next to no effort S&P 500 index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are among the safest investments out there, and they require minimal effort on your part.
Each fund contains stocks from 500 of the largest U.S. companies, and it performs best when given decades of uninterrupted time to grow. With enough time, it’s incredibly likely you’ll earn positive total returns with an S&P 500-tracking fund. In fact, every 20-year period in the S&P 500’s history has ended in positive total returns, according to Crestmont Research.